This is a sneak peak at Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film The Borrower Arrietty (Karigurashi No Arrietty). It is based the first book in Mary Norton’s children’s book series called “The Borrowers” about tiny people who live in the homes of big people and “borrow” things to survive while keeping their existence unknown. The central characters of the novels are the borrower family of Pod and Homily Clock and their spirited teenage daughter, Arrietty.

This preview seems to be lacking in the current trend of Studio Ghilbi film’s other worldly locations and grossly fantastical creatures. Is this a return to the simpler times of Kiki’s Delivery Service? Japan will find out when the movie opens there July 17th.

via martin hsu

When I heard the Robot Chicken was sitting down for some D&D with Wizards of the Coast Dungeon Master Chris Perkins (yes, the same DM who runs the PA/PvP/WW games), I couldn’t wait to see Seth Green rolling some dice and slaying some monsters! As the first episode began, I was introduced to Dan Milano, Zeb Wells, Tom Root, Doug Goldstein, and …Kevin Schinick? Where’s Seth?! Dammit. Who are these guys, why have most of them never played D&D and why aren’t they funnier?

*SIGH*

If you would like to watch the videos of Robot Chicken playing D&D, even through they don’t feature Seth Green, you can find them all here. Meanwhile, I will find comfort in the possibility this raises that the upcoming PA/PvP/WW game (yes, there is another on it’s way!) will be a video podcast - that would be amazing!

EDIT: I just found out why Seth Green couldn’t make it - he was too busy making a guest appearance over on WWE! FTW?

I’m sure all my B-movie horror buds will correct me, but this is the first I’ve ever seen of this awesome take on coed murderfests!

In Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil (starring, your friend and mine, Alan Tudyk, the title characters are backwater hillbillies who are having some of the worst coincidences of their lives. A group of Coeds have showed up and and, from their perspective, are participating in some sort of suicide pact as one by one they gruesomely die. Of course, from the coeds perspective, this is all Tucker and Dale’s doing. If you can’t tell, hilarity ensues - can’t wait to see this in a beer theater!

This is so so so rad. It is plenty clear by now that I love the Phoenix Wright series of games. When I heard they are coming to the big screen in the form of Wiiware, I was excited, but didn’t know if I wanted to pay to own two copies of the same game.

Question no more.

In the WiiWare version of Phoenix Wright:Ace Attorney, you can cause Phoenix to object by mimicking his animation and forcefully stabbing your finger shamefully at the witness along with him! Motion controlled objecting! I love it!!!

via joystiq

In my own way, I am a design snob and have coveted many a lovely font in my time, but I’m no where near this dedicated! Parodying Lady Gaga’s Pokerface, Mark Searcy and Jason Kinney have created a totally catchy ode to Neutraface (”You can read my Neutraface; even if it’s bold italic”). Once you watch it and are addicted, you’re going to want to go download the song for free here!

[thanks clumsygirlclub!]

I think this Tetris player had it coming. Did you see the rookie panic that lead to that misplaced yellow T-piece? He was practically asking to be smote!

Like that old proverb says, “Give a man a line piece and he’ll have a tetris for a day, teach a man to use an L-piece properly and he’ll have tetris for a lifetime!”

[thanks monkeyhole!]

Sumotori Dreams is a self proclaimed “little but very serious game in 96k…where beginners can beat hardcore players”. I’m not convinced anyone can beat anyone in this game. Unless you count incapacitation due to laughter as a win condition. Enjoy.

via nerdborg

I don’t know where people like Pete Marin come up with the time or the money for projects like this, but I’m all for it. Made out of wood and foam, Bumblebee is 12ft tall and took two months to build. Optimus Prime took over 6 months to build and towers 17ft high. With dimensions like that, expenses had to include not only the materials, molds and tools, but cherry pickers or something! Absolutely bizarre and amazing…

He plans to followup with Decepticons Barrage and Megatron in 2010.

I think I’ve made my love for Neil Patrick Harris pretty clear on this blog, so the news that I watched the Emmy’s last night should be of no surprise. It’s the most mainstream thing I’ve done all year! But it wasn’t just NPH that drew me in, it was the promise of a Dr. Horrible production halfway through the show!

When I first heard about it, I was puzzled. I had to take a step outside of the nerd box and ask myself, “If Joss Whedon a household name in middle America? How will they make Dr. Horrible understandable to those without context?” But I needed have worried. While the characterizations were a bit off, and the background was bluescreened, the content was hilarious and generic enough to be understandable to the “Whedonless”.

One thing the casual viewer wouldn’t get though, was the awkward representation of Joss Whedon’s support of new mediums (reiterated as recently as Joss’s acceptance speech at the Creative Arts Emmys). Dr. Horrible’s support of the internet as a new entertainment medium was merely self effacing jokes and Captain Hammer definitely stole the show. What do you think the take home message was supposed to be?

I haven’t talked about PAX much yet, but I wanted to make sure to mention one of my biggest surprises. I attented the Splinter Cell: Conviction & Assassin’s Creed 2 demo expecting to be stoked on SC:C and bored by AC2. Instead, the SC:C demo had virtually NO new content (Booo!), and the Assassin’s Creed demo was fantastic!

The newly released gameplay video above covers most of the content that was demo’d live at PAX. I know it was live, because producer Patrice Désilets very nearly lost a fight with a group of guards, which was great. The demo covered a lot of interesting new gameplay including being able to blend in with groups of people (in the video look for Ezio, our new assassin, walking through a group and them all turning grey), pickpocketing money from any NPC and being able to pay off mercenaries to fight for you. It looks like Ubisoft listened to the complaints about Assassin’s Creed one being too monotonous!

If District 9 didn’t make you feel any better about not getting a Halo movie, this might help…or maybe it’s just pouring salt in your wounds, I’m not sure. But either way, this Halo ODST short is fantastic!

Sometimes I scoff at what people are able to waste time doing. Other times, like now, I’m terribly jealous of what people are able to find time to create.

“8-Bit Trip” by Swedish musicians Rymdreglage took 1500 hrs to film. The swell in popularity of this short has broken their website, but their Youtube Channel is still intact to explore more of this duo’s creations.

via geektrooper